


Happiness Hit Her

by semele



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1353421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronica would be the first to admit that they've been engaging in what their health class in high school classified as risky behavior.</p><p>Warnings: pregnancy; mentions of abortion</p><p>CONTAINS MOVIE SPOILERS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by youcallitwinter: _the sins of the father_

_Happiness hit her like a train on a track_  
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back  
She hid around corners and she hid under beds  
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled  
With every bubble she sank with her drink  
And washed it away down the kitchen sink 

Florence + The Machine, _Dog Days Are Over_

Veronica would be the first to admit that they've been engaging in what their health class in high school classified as risky behavior.

She doesn't exactly _mean_ to be reckless. It's just that she was still on the pill during her two weeks of bliss with Logan, and she'd been on it for so long before that now condoms sort of slip her mind. Logan should be better at remembering, and he is, most of the time, but then he's also _Logan_ , and emotions run high in this one.

The first time they forget (day one hundred and eighty one), they realize their mistake around 4am, which is followed by a frantic morning in pursue of the miracle pill. You'd think that a charming day of vomiting her guts out and dodging her father's calls would improve Veronica's memory, and indeed it does.

For about three months.

Next time, Logan is the first to realize that they forgot, except it's been four days, and he's already in Afganistan. They barely talk for the next two weeks, then Logan bullies her into staying on Skype with him as she's doing the test, because _for fuck's sake, Veronica_.

The test comes out negative, and they have a good laugh about scaredy cats to cover mutual embarrassment.

***

Scare number three happens almost at leisure.

Logan comes home for full two months, and they engage in traditional couple activities: cooking, watching TV, and chasing bail jumpers into Mexico. Veronica isn’t exactly sure how she ended up taking Logan to work; he was just _there_ , level-headed and composed, and next thing she knows, they’re taking turns driving.

Part of it is that she doesn’t want to let go of him. She only has Logan for limited periods of time, and she’s still not done comparing the man he is and the boy he used to be. He’s easier, somehow, more reliable and less haunted, or maybe he’s simply aware that he can’t exactly give her shit for doing dangerous things when he himself flies planes for Uncle Sam in the Middle East.

They’re almost at the border when Veronica, looking for something on her phone, accidentally opens her calendar, and realizes that her period is three days late.

This raises hair at the back of her neck in superstitious fear; third time’s a charm, and they’re sure to finally run out of luck. She doesn’t even remember when they had unprotected sex, but she doesn’t remember using protection every single time, either.

"Pull over," she says in a choked voice, and Logan shoots her a worried look.

"What’s wrong, Veronica?"

"I just need to get something."

He lets her take the wheel without further questions, probably thinking that this abrupt stop has something to do with the case. She drives into the nearest town like the devil’s chasing her, then circles it until she finds a drug store. She doesn’t even look at Logan as she kills the engine, and when she’s back and he demands to know if she’s okay, he hands him the newly purchased pregnancy test, because it’s always easier for her to show than to tell.

"Do you want to find a motel?" asks Logan, and whoa, military training really did wonders to this boy, because his fingers are almost steady as he clasps them around the tiny box.

That’s exactly what she was planning to do, but now she hesitates, and before she can fully process all the facts, her hand is already reaching for the car keys, her mind made up in a split second. She starts the engine, and drives towards Mexico as planned, because as soon as she touches the steering wheel, she knows she’d rather do something than sit in a shabby motel room in awkward silence, staring at two thin lines that’d turn her life upside down.

She fully expects Logan to go into a state, but, surprisingly, he doesn't. Fingers still clutching the pregnancy test, he practically oozes tension and silence from the passenger's seat, and this is new – a new Logan, grown-up Logan who bottles things up instead of lashing out. Veronica doesn't let herself think about it too much.

Getting through the border takes forever, and by the time they reach the small town in which she expects to find her bail jumper, it's so late they might as well sleep the night, and start working in the morning. They check into the first motel they can find, and keep their cool like fucking adults: answer all the questions at the reception, ask about food, carry their bags upstairs. 

Then the door closes behind them, and masks fall. Logan slumps onto a bed, his face white like a sheet, fingers holding on to that damned pregnancy test like it was a lifeline. It makes Veronica feel strangely tender, as if she was rediscovering some long-lost familiarity, and suddenly she's glad he's here with her, and she won't have to do this alone.

“Let me,” she whispers, and lets her hand ruffle his hair for a second before she opens the box, and walks into the bathroom.

Five minutes later it turns out that it was a false alarm, again, and Veronica laughs at her own stupidity, because seriously, third time's a charm? Logan chuckles a little too loudly, his arms still locking Veronica in a tight embrace, and they vow to never mention this to anyone; their friends would have a field day.

***

A month later, Veronica is standing in Logan's bathroom, and her whole world shrinks to two tiny lines she can't believe she's seeing.

Logan is doing dishes in the kitchen, and she can hear him so clearly it's almost comical, long limbs and an endless army of mugs, cling-clang, what was it that they said? Not with a bang but a whimper.

She does the only reasonable thing she can think of. She runs.

***

Some people say it's easier to think when you're driving, but let's be real for a moment: Veronica isn't trying to think, she's trying to run, run like the devil's chasing her, because all this is just too much.

It's one thing to look back at the girl she used to be, and ask “Who are you, Veronica?”. It's quite another to look forward, and ask: “So, are you a mother?”.

“Mother” is a bad word in her head; it has this faint aura of booze and disappointment, matched with a fine tune of mood music. So, how is it gonna be, mom? Which song would you pick for our novelty dish of “We haven't spoken in a decade, because you don't give a damn, but I guess you're a grandma now”?

What, no witty comeback?

Driving around does nothing to clear Veronica's head, but at least it eases the knot in her chest, and she feels deceptively less trapped. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting a baby – what she didn't want was to get pregnant, and be forced to decide whether or not she's up for this, because she doesn't _know_ , and as soon as she comes back to reality, everyone will expect her to know.

Eventually she notices she's almost out of gas, and since she ran out without her wallet, she has no choice but to turn around and return where she came from.

Logan is standing in the driveway, his body visibly shaking, and for once composed Logan the Officer is replaced by teenage Logan the Trainwreck. Veronica almost expects to see a crowbar in his hands.

“What the hell, Veronica?” he yells as soon as she can hear him. “You storm out without a word, you don't take your phone, you leave this in the bathroom...”

He's waving a white stick right in front of her eyes, and screaming his guts out, his fear not helping the terror that keeps rising in Veronica's chest. They can't do this, there's no way they can; just look at them, a cluster of tension and bad habits fueled by anger and self-loathing. People like them shouldn't be allowed to raise a cat, let alone a person.

Then Logan crushes her in his arms, and Veronica, exhausted beyond measure, goes limb just because she can. She doesn't even make a move when he picks her up and carries her weight inside.

***

Grace period lasts for about half an hour, enough for Veronica to have some tea and start thinking that maybe they won't have to do this today. No such luck – Logan looks like someone too nervous to wait for the axe to fall, and she can't exactly blame him.

“What are we going to do?” he asks, staring at his own hands.

His question throws Veronica off balance, because she didn't really think about this situation as a “we” problem. She can't decide if she's grateful for support, or mad at the interference, so she just stares at Logan, dumbstruck, as if she forgot that she's supposed to say something.

“Veronica, I don't know if you got the memo, but if this whole 'relationship' thing is supposed to work, you have to communicate with me. Say something. Please, Veronica, say something.”

“We'd make disastrous parents,” she chokes out, because that's the first thing that comes to her mind. Logan gives a mirthless chuckle.

“Well, no disagreement there,” he answers, and maybe it's a trick of light, but just for a second, he looks less tense.

It's easier to talk after that.

***

They give themselves a few days to process, but soon enough it turns into a guessing game; into spying on each other and looking for tells that weight the scales one way or the other.

At least this is what Veronica does, because it's easier to play detective than to make life-altering decisions.

Logan seems to be watching his own hands a lot, and Veronica knows that it's not because he thinks they hold any answers. There's a nine-year gap between herself and Logan, and on some level, they don't know each other at all, but this gesture is old, so old that neither of them really wants to remember it. When Logan looks at his hands, he sees questions: questions about fundamental truths, about broken fingers and cigarette burns, and about history repeating itself. Veronica knows it's not her place to answer them for him.

She's tempted to do something similar, like: pour a drink and let it sit on her nightstand for hours, a grave foreshadowing of Christmas Yet To Come.

(Like: disappear for three days without a word, and see if she'll be able to come back.)

But that would be melodramatic, so she gets up early, and goes to work instead.

***

Her dad is so chipper it gives Veronica a stop; his good mood seems inappropriate, but apparently the world doesn't stop spinning just because Veronica Mars forgot a condom one time too many.

Huh, who'd think?

It's a frantic day, cluttered with boring, petty cases that don't even come close to keeping Veronica's mind occupied enough. For some reason, she can't keep her eyes off her dad. It feels as if he held an answer to her problem, even though the very thought is ridiculous. It's not like she's suddenly gonna tell him anything, let alone ask for advice. 

Of course by lunchtime Keith's bullshit detector goes off, so Veronica isn't even surprised when two boxes of comfort Chinese food land on her desk a few minutes after twelve.

“Is everything okay, honey?” her dad asks, pretending to be focused on his fork.

She doesn't find it in herself to lie.

“Not really, but I'm working on it.”

“Does it have to do with Logan?”

Veronica hesitates. It would be so easy to say “yes,” but now that she started telling the truth, she doesn't really want to stop. 

“Not really,” she answers after a second. She keeps avoiding her dad's eyes, and apparently he doesn't want to push, because he finishes his meal in silence, waiting for her to say something. When she doesn't, he lets out a sigh, gives her a quick hug, and makes his way back to his office.

As Veronica watches his back, she's struck by an old thought, something buried so deeply she couldn't exactly put her finger on it, even though it's been nagging her ever since she saw the two lines on that fucking test.

The hero is the one that stays, and the villain is the one that splits. So, which one are you, Veronica Mars?

On some level, she knows it's not a fair comparison. It's not even how she thinks about abortion in general, but somehow this feels like the exactly right question for her. It's like she never quite stopped being sixteen, angry, and confused. Despite that long (not so) forgotten paternity test turning out the way it should've, she still has something to prove to herself.

“Hey,” says Keith, comically sticking his head out of his office door. “Who's your daddy?”

“You are,” she replies with no hesitation, almost managing to hide a sob.

***

Her conversation about Logan is all about choosing the words very carefully. He's the one who's good with words, so he'll pick up on every nuance, and Veronica needs to be sure to say exactly what she means, no more, no less.

“I'm having the baby,” she says with no preamble. It's a decision she's making here, so “want,” “need” or “must” have no place in her sentence. They'd be nothing but confusing.

Logan is looking at her with familiar intensity, his entire being reduced to long limbs and tension. He's not happy with the news, and for a moment Veronica wonders if he's gonna leave her, but when he makes no move, she thinks better of it.

“We should go see a doctor,” he says in a strangled voice. “And I need to arrange to be home at least a month or two before you're due.”

Veronica expected him to argue, but now she realizes he never would. Logan might be as rubbish as she is at accepting the things he can't change and changing the ones he can, but the last nine years surely taught him enough to know the difference.

“You don't like this,” she says, because apparently honesty is the policy right now. Look how she's grown as a person.

Logan bites his lip, clearly considering something, but when he finally decides to look at her, he's determined and dead serious.

“If I ever... do anything, you kick me out,” he says slowly. “Do you understand?”

“Come on, Logan, don't you think this is a bit dramatic?” she asks, but he grasps her arms just a touch too tightly, and for a moment he's so seventeen it hurts.

“No, Veronica, you need to promise me. Promise me you'll do this!”

It's not fair, the way he's making her responsible, but then, “fair” never was a part of their deal.


	2. Chapter 2

Next ten days, up until Logan's departure, are spent in a whirlwind of telling everyone. The news settles in slowly, finding its way between Wallace's congratulations and Keith's initial disbelief. Somehow, this whole hassle goes completely over Veronica's head as if it wasn't real, or even better, not about her at all. When she tries to focus on what she decided to do, she feels nauseaus and wonders, not for the first time, if it's really morning sickness what she's been suffering from lately.

“I hear there's gonna be two of you, V,” says Weevil on day four. “Can't say I'm not surprised.”

“You and me both,” she admits, because Weevil, of all people, will probably understand.

“I know the feeling. We were planning it, and when Jade told me, I was still... You know.”

“Yeah, we didn't exactly... plan.”

Weevil shrugs, and Veronica is struck by how comfortable he is in his own skin, the sleeve of his biker's jacket not covering a few specks of blue glitter that are probably a mark of Valentina's last artistic endeavor. 

“It suits you, you know,” says Veronica jealously. “Being a dad.”

He doesn't answer, just gives her a small smile, then rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand, smearing some glitter on his brow. Veronica's first impulse is to tell him about it, but then she decides against it, and discovers that, for some reason, this act of pettiness made her feel marginally better.

***

Things between her and Logan feel less and less like walking on eggshells. He is resigned and strangely quiet, pensive rather than wounded, so slowly they start losing the tension that's been accompanying them since their first scare, if not since they first met.

Veronica knows that this is silence before the storm, but it feels nice, so she lets it be.

Logan treats her like she's made of ice, and some of it is his usual pre-partum tenderness she's learned to recognize, but there's also an edge to it that's completely new; something rooted neither in the childhood they shared, nor in the nine years she still knows so little about.

“Come back to me,” she tells him the last morning, just like she's done three times already.

Logan hesitates before he kisses her forehead.

***

Her eyes are a little puffy when she walks into the office just a few hours later, but her dad pretends not to notice. She thought that telling him would be the difficult part, but it turns out that the real battle is only about to begin – a battle of “can” and “can't,” Veronica Mars against the world.

It starts small, with her dad asking her to deal with some paperwork instead of a stakeout, or Wallace suddenly picking up her tray after lunch. It's sweet until it's not, a web of care trapping her like a net, and scaring her out of her wits. 

“Please, tell me you're being careful,” says Logan almost every day. Her inbox and Skype are exploding with his good intentions, and that's how Veronica learns that she's carrying a time bomb, fragile and precious, a bomb she can set off every day by taking as much as one wrong step.

It makes her want to do tequila shots for three hours straight, then drive to the nearest bridge, and do a bungee jump.

“I'm not an invalid,” she barks to her dad one day, as he's trying to tiptoe around her at work, and it makes her flash back to a case from another life; to Lilly Kane's bashed-in skull that she was supposed to forget all about because she, too, was a child back then.

“I know you aren't, honey. But I get to be annoying and overbearing, that is my right as your father.”

Veronica can't help but crack up a little; she might be cranky and more tired than she'd like to admit, but she loves the easy banter she has with her dad. Having him back on everyday basis is one of her favorite things about being back in Neptune.

***

It wasn't so easy at first.

“Dad, I'm pregnant,” she said, and watched Keith's face fall comically. “I already have a copy of 'What To Expect When You're Expecting', but I am accepting customary gifts of baloons and stuffed animals.”

“This isn't funny, Veronica.”

For a second there, she felt like a pregnant teenager, scared and ashamed of disappointing her dad so terribly, but she snapped out of it immediately. She's an adult, she told herself, and she can't think like this. 

Soon enough, she'd have a brand new person to disappoint.

“Come on, a little funny? Anyway, you're obliged to laugh at stupid jokes for the first twelve years. I'm sure it's somewhere in the grandpa contract, so you might as well start practicing right away.”

Maybe if she hadn't insisted on being silly, her dad wouldn't have taken so long adjusting, but she couldn't imagine doing this any other way. She's Veronica Mars for better or worse, and it's not like she would suddenly change her ways.

(“I want you to believe that I can do this,” she choked out eventually, her eyes full of tears, and that's when Keith finally hugged her.)

***

Mac is strangely quiet, and grows quieter still as weeks go by. Veronica finds herself searching for her company, because, unlike everyone else, Mac looks at her face and not her belly when she talks to her.

There's a single moment of awkwardness at the very beginning, an exchange of looks and a shrug, but then Mac's gaze reverts to her computer as if nothing happened, and starts going on about the research she's done for a case. Veronica is surprised – Mac isn't usually one to keep quiet, and she often blurts things out sooner rather than later, but not this time. It might have to do with her own mother (mothers, plural), or maybe there's something else that Veronica doesn't know about. Either way she doesn't end up on the receiving end of Mac's sharp wit, and she can't say she isn't grateful.

“So, have you picked the name yet?” asks Mac when Veronica is about four months in and starting to show.

“Barbie,” she answers with mock confidence, but Mac ignores the jab.

“Bonnie,” she offers as she opens a can of coke. “Bonnie is a good, strong name. Or Clyde,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Clyde sounds like a turtle name.”

“True, but it would be a criminal mastermind turtle?”

Veronica ends up getting Mac a pencil holder shaped like a turtle, and she secretly wishes that all her baby conversations could result in something as simple as buying a piece of stationary and naming it Clyde the Turtle.

***

As weeks pass by, Veronica does all in her power to not count them, but somehow she can't help herself. Numbers run in her head like crazy, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four. She does her pregnancy research well, because Veronica Mars, of all people, needs to _know_ what to expect no matter what, no matter how scared or unsure she feels. Sometimes she catches a glimpse of her dad shaking his head at the frantic reading she keeps doing, but she pays him no heed.

It would probably be good for her to talk to him and get some advice, but, well. 

It feels like she's getting bigger every day, and she keeps having an uncanny impression that everyone is staring at her. It might be just fatigue talking, because with extra pounds comes soreness, and a surprising urge to sleep for sixteen hours a day. As she forces herself to stay awake, she tries to figure out whether or not she's being irrational. After all, Neptune is a small town, and many people know her, right?

When she starts her sixth month, she catches herself checking out tabloid covers every time she does grocery shopping. “Son of a movie star knocks up a private eye” is the headline she'd choose herself, or maybe: “Mystery baby? Third generation of the Echolls family!”, but nothing like that ever happens. Instead, Veronica only gets a few dirty looks from Madison Sinclair, so much for impressive gossip.

She's half-relieved, half-disappointed.

***

By the time Logan comes back, Veronica is huge and cranky. She has no idea how he managed to get such a long leave so soon, but she doesn't question it – mostly because she's too exhausted to question anything.

She feels painfully, overwhelmingly un-Veronica, a strange creature with a sore back and swollen feet. Sometimes she wakes at night, because she dreams that something is eating her up for the inside, and Logan soothes her sleepily, only half-aware of what he's saying. It's affectionate nonsense, something Logan totally would say even if he was awake, and Veronica eats it up because she can – because she's so much un-Veronica anyway, and she might as well enjoy.

His words make her want to curl up next to him and smash his skull against a wall at the same time, but she can live with the contradiction.

She moves to Logan's for now, because he wants to be close to her, and she refuses to have him and her dad in the same place for longer periods of time. It makes sense, anyway – Logan's on a leave, but Keith is working full time, and Veronica, as they keep telling her, needs help now.

She'd gladly sign up for another month of desk duty at Mars Investigations, but Mac is already there, suddenly eager to please, and Veronica has no choice but to crawl back home and be grateful for the wonderful people she has around her.

***

Logan buys a cradle.

He speaks to the sales assistant with some surreal ease, and for about seven minutes they're a normal apple pie family, _yes, this is our first baby, we're having a girl_. There's no single misstep to be found, not even a sign of tension in Logan's shoulders when he reaches for his wallet, and that's what makes the whole situation eerie.

They take the cradle home right away, and they place it in the room they started preparing for the baby. Something about seeing Logan folding tiny blankets feels like a high school health class gone too far, and Veronica can't help herself – she cracks up so hard she can barely stand. He joins her in no time, and just in case they're laughing for different reasons, neither of them says a word.

Two days later, Logan comes home drunk.

He's been meeting up with Dick, so Veronica didn't exactly expect him to return sober, but she's still not prepared for the shitfaced pile of teenage vulnerability that steps over the threshold. It makes her two parts angry one part scared, like this is something she's supposed to deal with right now whether she likes it or lot, because her back is against the wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she hisses as he stumbles. Logan looks her right in the eye and laughs.

“Now you'll never leave me,” he says with surprising clarity and predictable bitterness, be careful what you wish for. “I mean, you could, but not really. Don't you just hate me for that?”

He storms away not waiting for an answers, slams the bathroom door way too loudly. Veronica can hear him throw something into a wall in an act of impotent rage, but he misses the mirror, so she doesn't try to follow him.

In the morning, he washes his face and checks the clock to see if he's sober enough to drive already. As soon as he can, he leaves, and comes back with three basketballs and a blackboard to hang in the back yard.

“Anger management?” asks Veronica when she sees his shopping bags.

Logan shrugs and doesn't quite meet her eye, but he hangs the board this very afternoon.

It's feeble, but it's something.

***

They have a lot of ground to cover, last names, and custody, and places to live. Veronica doesn't really mind moving in with Logan. She loves him, she thinks, and he's good company, warm and not overly sociable, soothing in his own way. What she hates is that things seem so fixed now, decided somewhere beyond them, Logan's cute little house closing around them like a trap. Some days, she thinks he hates it too, because he's stalling just as much as she is – or maybe he's just turning the same thoughts over in over in his head until they start making sense.

So they end up with a temporary nursery with no expiration date, stuffed with clothes too small for their imagination and equipment they don't exactly know how to use.

They live in relative peace until one evening pain interrupts their epic Clint Eastwood marathon. Veronica has everything prepared, of course, an overnight bag and a list of important phone calls to make, but Logan's eyes still look wild and frantic as he fumbles for his car keys and forces his hands to be steady, because oh God, they aren't ready, not yet, not now, maybe in a few days.

As her pains escalate, and Veronica tries to will herself closer to the hospital, she realizes that they've been so focused on themselves they haven't even picked the name yet.


End file.
